Earth to Echo (2014)

Three young school children: TUCK, MUNCH and ALEX, who are kind of inseparable, now concerned with the fact that they are going to part ways as their families are moving to different places after their neighborhood is giving way to a highway construction project.

Two days before their families must part ways, the boys start receiving a series of strange signals in their malfunctioning mobile phones; from here starts a journey, full of wonder and adventure.

Yes, Earth to Echo is an interesting kid’s action adventure drama made in the way of various other alien movies. Nevertheless, without talking about its similarity or drawing a comparison to any other, I guess it would be easy for me to talk about the movie a bit more and what I liked about this.

As the story progress, and as the boys get convinced that something bigger is going on, they team up with another school friend, Emma, and follow the signals to the place their maps indicate. What they discover is something beyond their wildest imaginations: they found a small alien who has become stranded on earth whom they named Echo.

The rest of the film is all about the kids trying to protect Echo and help him find his way home after rebuilding his spacecraft.

While Earth to Echo may have been panned by some critics for picking up different things from different films, there is no doubt that it has successfully created its own space with a found-footage style filming, decent acting and enough special effects.

I found the story and characters very interesting; moreover, I guess the found-footage style filming with shaky camera does work for this film. Other than superheroes and animated flicks, kids will also like this movie for its simple story and the cute little animated character Echo.

Starring: Teo Halm (Alex), Brian “Astro” Bradley (Tuck), Reese Hartwig (Munch) Ella Wahlestedt (Emma)
Directed by: Dave Green
Genre: Family Adventure
Released year: 2014